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River of Gods
 
 
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River of Gods (Paperback)

by Ian McDonald (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 583 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket Books; New edition edition (4 April 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0743404009
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743404006
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 276,388 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #10 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > M > McDonald, Ian

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Product Description

GUARDIAN
'A staggering achievement, brilliantly imagined and endlessly surprising ... A brave, brilliant and wonderful novel'

Nick Gevers, Locus
'Hugely adventurous and entertaining, sumptuously inventive and full of heart...it is likely to rank as Ian McDonald's finest creative achievement' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars woo hoo, woo hoo hoo, 20 Aug 2004
This review is from: River of Gods (Paperback)
Three years after the so-so Ares Express, but it's been worth the wait. This is a big steam-roller of a book --you don't so much read it as experience it; it's a shock to the system in almost every way. There's so much going on it it's almost impossible to adequately describe --Mysterious Artefacts in space, artificial intelligences, a completely computer generated soap opera (it's only a question of time really)weater wars, political intrigue, third-sex 'nutes', genetically engineered 'Brahmins': this is wide-screen SF. More than that, it has the feel of John Brunner's classics: Stand on Zanzibar, The Sheep Look Up, --it's a lived in future, not just a wam-bam story. And it's India! This is a world as alien as any you'll read in a wide-angle space-opera...
Great characters, who generate the story, rather than get pushed around by it, and a cosmic-scale denoument that is perfectly set up, but I for one didn't see coming.
Not the easiest book I ever read, but you come out of it with your head reeling and our world seems dull and pale by comparison.
Oh, and there's cricket too!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars River of Gods, 19 Jul 2005
River of Gods marks a return to form for Ian McDonald, after the dissapointing Ares Express. It's set in a near-future India, splintered into smaller states. The book takes awhile to get going as there are several protagonists and we are introduced to each in turn, as the plot starts up. This takes time, but is rewarding as we see a multi-faceted view of the society that Indida has become in the near future, and the changes to the human condition that have come with biotechnology and climate change.

The plot is layered and keeps us guessing to the very end. I can't discuss it much here whithout giving too much away, but it's as satisfying and twisty-turny with the same mythic ties as the original Desolation Road, only the mythos here is Indian, not African, and a great deal more interesting. There are occasional passages where he holds up a latter-day mirror to the current-day West, but it's done stubly and doesn't interfere with a read as tightly plotted as a thriller.

In short, a very rewarding read.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and expansive, dissapointing ending though...., 3 Nov 2004
By Damon Doyle "damonde" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: River of Gods (Paperback)
A roller coaster ride with superlative character development and prose that really paints a picture of the difference in culture between east/west and the rigid societal and religious issues in India. Also greatresearch went into this book as it is authentic in its intepretation of Indian culture. Great SF elements to the story, although feel some of the ideas have been copied from other books (but thats inevitable....I liked this book alot and after spending most of the year reading mediocre old hash, this was refreshing. Good material for a film, maybe Bollywood can come up with something....BUT and its a rather large BUT.....after all the great writing, ideas and the pictures in your head he paints, the ending is something of a damp squib....should have been a bit more grandiose i feel to match the earlier parts of the book. Altogether though worth every penny and ill read it again....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Overambitious and incoherent...
Trully massive in scope, filled with interesting characters and ideas (hence the 3 stars), I nevertheless felt it did not live up to its intentions and my expectations... Read more
Published 12 months ago by selana

1.0 out of 5 stars Ughh!
It's more than 30 years that i read sf and I rarely write reviews but this i had to do!
Basic Idea is just enough for a short story. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Antonio Donini

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed But Worth Reading
Once or twice a year I like to try out a recent science-fiction title people are buzzing about, just to get a sense of developments in the genre. Read more
Published 18 months ago by A. Ross

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book - too short though
Ok. After over a decade of reading I.M. books I've been completely amazed by this mans imagination, way with words (those adjectives, still can't believe it) and the staggering... Read more
Published on 10 Jul 2006 by da ding

5.0 out of 5 stars An instant SF Classic!
Ian Mcdonald has quite simply written the first great SF novel of the 20th century!

First, when I mean SF, it does not mean that I am not reading this novel as closely as I... Read more

Published on 16 Jan 2006 by cmmahon

5.0 out of 5 stars A SF Masterpiece!
Ian Mcdonald has quite simply written the first great SF novel of the 20th century!

First, when I mean SF I do not mean 'Weird' or 'Fantasy' fictions... Read more

Published on 14 Jan 2006 by cmmahon

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Mcdonald's Masterpiece
Ian Mcdonald as of this book, is a great writer in the sense of having something to say about the world. Read more
Published on 13 Jan 2006 by cmmahon

5.0 out of 5 stars River of Gods
River of Gods takes you into an alien (at least alien to my western mind) world of India 50 years hence, with a mix of hi-tech gadgets and third-world slums, Hindu mythology and... Read more
Published on 13 May 2005 by Bob simms

5.0 out of 5 stars As Staggering as India Itself
Scared the bejeezus out of my wife after reading page 382, closing the book, and banging my palms against the window frame in our hotel room high over this city in Northern China... Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2004 by socrates17

5.0 out of 5 stars Epic!
Ian McDonald has long promised to deliver a book like 'River of Gods', and now it's here it really has proved worth the wait! Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2004 by Robert Frampton

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